I don't know who wrote that introduction but I felt like I was reading a script for a comedy movie. Two words stood out from the introduction: Specific and Quality. How do you measure quality if your ministry is so specific? For example, if a sheep asks why he need to follow UBF marriage by faith, his shepherd only has to say "because unlike other ministries, our ministry is very specific or unique" as it happens all the time in UBF.

The funniest part was when I read "the highest standard of excellence in scholarship and biblical faithfulness". Whoever wrote this, he surely seems to know how to collect nice words and put them in an orderly arrangement. But without any THINKING!!

Writing is not just collecting nice words and put them in some order. Writing requires rigorous THINKING. Before writing about "the highest standard of excellence in scholarship", one should THINK about whether "the highest standard of excellence in scholarship" could be attainable in UBF environment where there is no freedom to rigorously pursue any degree of "scholarship". As discussed previously, a clear commitment to UBF takes higher priority to anything including "scholarship" in UBF.

So what if a clear commitment to UBF contradicts the pursuit of excellence in scholarship? What if the preservation of Dr. Samuel Lee's beautiful spiritual legacy contradicts the pursuit of excellence in scholarship? What if the pursuit of excellence in scholarship leads one to leave UBF? Now we can see that even the talk of "the highest standard of excellence in scholarship" in UBF is a joke!! To achieve "the highest standard of excellence in scholarship" requires the highest degree of FREEDOM to do so.

In conclusion, the bottom line of UBF Publication Ministry has nothing to do with "the highest standard of excellence in scholarship and biblical faithfulness" but has only to do with money!!

We all heard in UBF that man is mission. This UBF teaching is based on Gen 1 and 2. According to Dr. Samuel Lee’s Genesis study man=mission and mission=man. Well, I do not know the difference between man=mission and mission=man but we get the point. But what is lacking in his equation of man=mission is a corollary that man=freedom. If man=mission, it must follow that man=freedom as we can clearly see in Gen 2 in which God clearly declares “You are free!” after he has given the man a mission to take care of the garden.

How can a man carry out his mission if he has no freedom? It is of course possible for a man to carry out his mission without freedom. But then he is no longer a man but a slave or a machine. In UBF one has no choice but to inherit Dr. Samuel Lee’s beautiful spiritual legacy. In UBF one has no choice but to praise Dr. Ben Toh’s absolute attitude of encouraging a divorce when a spouse plans to leave UBF. So then what kind of mission is being carried out in UBF when there is no freedom to disagree with anything? How can an absolute attitude with no freedom be an absolute attitude anyway?

One of UBF’s favorite training is “humbleness” training. Closely connected with “humbleness” training in UBF is God’s “sovereignty”. There is no doubt that humbleness and God’s sovereignty are most highly valued in any Christian community. I believe that any Christian should sacrifice his freedom for the sake of humbleness and God’s sovereignty. But the sacrifice of one’s freedom must be not be interpreted as diminution one’s freedom but only as its enrichment. The greatest evil taking place in UBF is that the preservation of one’s freedom is constantly compromised by the preservation of Dr. Samuel Lee’s beautiful spiritual legacy. That is what has lead to the reform movement in UBF.

Mission without freedom is what UBF teaches about biblical mission. Mission without freedom is eventually what UBF wants from the sheep, which is synonymous to a clear commitment to UBF. So we could say that ”a clear commitment to UBF” = “Mission without freedom“. But Gen 2 teaches us that ”a clear commitment to God” = “Mission with freedom“.

As it was noted previously, any argument about freedom should be very carefully analyzed in a proper context because freedom is one of the most abused and misused notions throughout history. No one in UBF can properly interpret Gen 2:16,17. So any UBF teaching on freedom based on Gen 2:16 and 17 should be discarded because it is all about making a committed UBF member.

The UBF staff shepherds do not study the notion of freedom rigorously. They don’t even read books or blogs regularly either. The sad thing is that every UBF messenger only copies the notion of freedom from Dr. Samuel Lee’s interpretation which is completely wrong. I don’t think Dr. John Armstrong could do a proper job on freedom either. Maybe Dr. Erwin Lutzer could do an excellent job.

Gen 2: 16 and 17 could be broken down into three notions: freedom, command and consequence. A man is free to do anything. A command would not have any meaning if a man who receives the command is not free. Man has freedom to obey the command and also to disobey the command. But he is not free from the consequences.

One must clearly distinguish the difference between (1)freedom to do what he wants to do and (2)freedom from the consequences. Gen 2: 16 and 17 clearly tell us that we have (1) but we do not have (2). Then does ~(2)(using ~ as negation) diminish (1)? Some people think so. But since (1) and ~(2) are both in the Bible, they don’t seem to contradict each other. However the UBF leaders misuse ~(2) to diminish (1). For example, they claim or insinuate that if a sheep does not clearly commit to UBF, he would face a terrible consequence leaving him no choice but to commit to UBF or to marry only inside UBF.

God’s command in Gen 2: 16 and 17 should be interpreted in such a way that it wasn’t meant to diminish (1) by invoking ~(2), which was by the way Satan’s interpretation and also the man’s interpretation. God’s command must have been meant to bind both (1) and ~(2) putting them on a firm foundation. (Any comment on this one is welcome!!)

Why bother with (1) and (2) when one can simply obey God and serve others? Well, what do you mean by “simply obey God”? Doea it mean "simply obey UBF" that leads to confusion, division, useless religious sufferings, idol worship and materialism all of which can be found in any Korean church and also in UBF. One can’t just “simply obey God” when he doesn’t understand the fundamentals. Korean churches need reform and a new foundation based on sound and rigorous theology instead of Korean-style “simply obeying God”.